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Sean McLaughlin Speaks at AED Show
Our fearless and inestimable CEO and founder Sean McLaughlin gave a talk at the annual Association of Equipment Dealers' (AED) conference in Orlando, FL two weeks ago. Sean gave the talk under the dual position as owner of a 5 location equipment dealer (Craig Taylor Equipment aka CTE) as well as the CEO of a quickly growing software company (Flyntlok!). He focused his speech on the value of technology and the critical role it can play within a dealership.
The main premise is that modern technology is not just a recruiting tool, but it is also pivotal for employee retention. Anyone reading these Release Notes knows the pain and difficulty of finding and retaining employees. Highly motivated staff members want to work with and use modern tools. Old technology is rarely fun or cool. Imagine trying to recruit an employee and showing them a green-screen DMS that was first built 15 years before they were even born vs using a system that allows speech to text for recording complaints/causes/corrections. Further, when you onboard new staff members, you can get them up and running much faster if your dealership adopts modern platforms. Does it suck swapping out old systems? Absolutely! But if you embrace the suck, you'll get to the other side and you'll see a step function in the growth potential of your dealership.
Sean illustrated the direct effects of technology by using his own dealership as a prime example. When he first purchased CTE it was doing $19mln a year, but ten years later it grew to $104mln. Yes, the Flyntlok DMS allowed for a much more efficient dealership with better management of inventory, service, and sales, but he also adopted numerous other best-of-breed technologies that could scale with his business from QuickBooks Online (and later Sage Intacct) to Shopify to SurveyMonkey and Twilio. There was a direct correlation to the adoption of technology to the massive growth of the dealership.
Sean talked about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (yeah, remember, he's still a Harvard nerd) and how people are always trying to sell you stuff at the top of the pyramid ("self-fulfillment needs") instead of selling you the core things you need to keep your business running ("basic needs"). Modern cloud based software systems, alongside Artificial Intelligence, are an entirely new evolution of the species. Those who adopt technology will thrive; those who don't will struggle to survive.
Release Notes
Machines
Mobile Machine Search - On Order Filter [#60626]
Opportunity
Salespeople viewing their list of machines on the mobile view requested the ability to filter out machines that are On Order, like how you can filter Sold machines.
Solution
There is a new checkbox on the Mobile Machine Searcher that allows you to filter out machines that are On Order.
Min. List Price On Invoice [#60418]
Opportunity
Salespeople have asked to see a Machine’s “Minimum List Price” in the detailed financial view on the Invoice page, as this will make it easier to calculate discounts when quoting or selling a Machine.
Solution
You can now find any Machine’s “Minimum List Price” in the detailed financial view on Machine Dashboard.
Copying Models [#61031]
Opportunity
Managers requested the ability to streamline their management of similar Models.
Solution
Users can now duplicate a Model from the Model editor page. To do this while creating or editing a Model, click on the "Save & Create Duplicate" button:
This will save your current edits and then create a new Model with all fields duplicated. Note: The newly created Model's name will have the word "COPY" appended to it to prevent duplicate naming.
Service
Service Scheduler - Show Work Order Age
Opportunity
Service Managers using the Work Order Scheduler would like to be able to view a Work Order’s age on the “card” in the Work Order list.
Solution
The age (in days) is now presented on the Work Order “card” in the list of Work Orders, and the created date can be viewed by hovering over the age.
Warranty Work Orders - Process $0 Customer Invoices [#61378]
Opportunity
Service Managers requested that $0 customer Invoices be automatically processed when invoicing a Work Order to a regular Customer and separately to a Warranty Customer.
Solution
$0 Customer Invoices will now automatically be processed (moved to Delivered status) when Invoicing a Work Order to a Customer and Warranty Customer Separately.
Work Order Pick List [#60767]
Opportunity
Service Managers mentioned that it was inefficient (and potentially paper-wasting) to print multiple Pick Lists for a single Work Order that contained multiple Internal Parts Order invoices.
Solution
We have added a printable Work Order Pick List in full-page and thermal paper formats. You can access these from the Actions drop-down on Work Order Dashboard:
Parts are grouped by Job:
Part Purchasing
Consolidated Preview on Part Purchase Order [#60917]
Opportunity
When a Purchaser is submitting a Purchase Order to an external vendor, they generally only care about the total quantity of an Item to order, regardless of the store's own specific allocations. They requested a way to view Part Purchase Orders by total quantity per Item to streamline their ordering and reduce errors.
Solution
We have added a new toggle to view consolidated quantities on our Part Purchase Order page:
Machine Purchasing
Enhancements to MPO Quick Model Creation [#60394]
Opportunity
Purchasers requested an enhancement to streamline their Model creation workflows while creating a Machine Purchase Order.
Solution
When creating a new Model from the Machine Purchase Order page, clicking on the "Advanced" section will reveal additional fields to apply to the new Model.
Point of Sale
Permissions on Reversing Sales Orders
Opportunity
Managers requested additional controls around their Users' ability to Reverse a Sales Order.
Solution
Administrators can access a new permission called “Reverse Sales Order” via the Wrench icon -> Users -> Access Control, under the Point of Sale category. This will keep any user without the permission from reversing of non-Internal Sales Orders.
Note: As with all Permissions on this page, when changing it, the Users must log out and back in for it to take effect.
Cost of Sale Work Order on Machine Sale [#58122]
Opportunity
Managers requested a quicker way to identify Cost of Sale Work Orders associated with a Machine Sale. Previously, the only way to know was to manually review associated Work Orders on the Machine Dashboard and look for Work Orders that had the appropriate Customer assigned to it.
Solution
When creating a Work Order from the original Machine sale, it will now be visible in the "Related Transactions" pop up at the bottom of the Point of Sale screen.
CRM
Previous Review Requests [#59747]
Opportunity
Salespeople requested a way to know if they or anyone in their company had previously sent a Review Request to a customer. They did not want to unintentionally send multiple requests to a long-term Customer.
Solution
When sending a Review Request, users can now see if a Request had been previously sent to a specific email or phone number. When viewing or adding an email address or phone number, an indicator will appear, and hovering over it will reveal the date that a Request was last sent:
Search
Quick Search - Mark Inactive Customers [#58826]
Opportunity
Managers requested a way to identify inactive customers when using the Quick Searcher. They were having a difficult time finding customers when there were inactive customers that matched their search, as there was no way to tell the active customers from the inactive ones.
Solution
Inactive customers now have a red indication clearly showing their inactive status, just like parts.
Resolved Issues
#56553
Complaint: Rental Clerks complained to Wayne that from Machine Dashboard, when renting a Machine that had Suggested Items configured, they were not being prompted to select those Items.
Correction: Fixed.
#60839
Complaint: Salespeople reported that when swapping out a Machine on a Sales Order, the swapped-out Machine sometimes remained in Sold status.
Correction: This happened on an invoice that was past “Draft” status. Fixed.
#60940
Complaint: Salespeople reported that Will Call Labels on Item Receiving Vouchers sometimes didn’t display the full Customer name and Sales Order reference.
Correction: This was occurring on labels with longer names. Fixed.
#60953
Complaint: Rental Clerks complained that on the New Rental page, when switching between List and Timeline views, sometimes the availability information on Models or Machines would appear inconsistent between the two views.
Correction: Fixed.
#61031
Complaint: Managers mentioned that they were able to unintentionally create Models with the same name and Vendor, causing confusion around reporting and searching.
Correction: Updated the Model editor page to prevent creating or editing Model names that match an existing name on the same Vendor.
#61038
Complaint: Salespeople reported that they would receive an error due to phone number formatting when navigating to a new Lead that was created from the Customer dashboard.
Correction: Fixed.
#61044
Complaint: Salespeople mentioned that the searcher on the All Leads page would sometimes display an error.
Correction: Fixed.
#61106
Complaint: Purchasers noted that on Part Purchase Orders, the warning for Vendor minimum order amount was always visible, even if the order was over the minimum amount.
Correction: Fixed. This warning should now only show when the Purchase Order's total falls below the Vendor minimum.
#61122
Complaint: Service Managers reported that sorting by priority on the Work Orders Service Scheduler did not sort the list of Work Orders properly.
Correction: Fixed.
#61077
Complaint: Sales Managers reported that orders coming from Shopify into Flyntlok were being discounted if the order was for an existing Flyntlok customer that had discounts.
Correction: Fixed. Customer discounts will be ignored to ensure the invoice total lines up with what came from Shopify.
#61184
Complaint: Parts Managers reported that Part Purchase Orders were not always being closed when all parts were received.
Correction: Fixed.
#61173
Complaint: Parts Managers reported that Quantity On Hand was not being adjusted on Parts substituted on Part Purchase Orders.
Correction: QOH was being updated, but we needed to do a forced-refresh of the page to show the updated value.
#61282
Complaint: Managers noted that when adjusting the MSRP of an Item, the Vendor default markup was not being applied to List Price.
Correction: Fixed. This only affected locations that were not using Price Matrix calculations.
#61241
Complaint: Rental Clerks complained that on the New Rental page Timeline view, Machines with an "On Contract" Conflict were being displayed as Available.
Correction: Fixed. "On Contract" Conflicts should now correctly show the orange-colored indicator as shown here:
#61508
Complaint: Fleet Managers with the Samsara integration mentioned that their Machines were not being updated with hours or mileage data from Samsara.
Correction: Fixed.
#61384
Complaint: Part Receivers reported that the Part Receiving Voucher would appear to have no parts data initially, then the table’s lines would load.
Correction: Fixed.
#61388
Complaint: Parts Receivers reported that, when adding fees to Vouchers, they had to click into the Action field before being able to type when they didn’t need to before.
Correction: The cursor now automatically appears in the field when you add a new fee.
#61465
Complaint: Parts Managers reported that superseding Parts on Part Purchase Orders would sometimes fail without indicating why.
Correction: Fixed.
#61500
Complaint: Service Managers reported that parts from Invoices that had been unlinked from Work Orders would still appear on Estimates generated later.
Correction: Fixed.
#61501
Complaint: Shopify Managers reported that they were unable to see information about Shopify-linked parts in Flyntlok.
Correction: Fixed. Shopify made unannounced changes to their integration that Flyntlok was not made aware of until it was too late. Sometimes we just gotta roll with the punches.
#61244
Complaint: Inventory Managers noted that when removing an Item from a Sales Order that was linked to a Purchase Order, the Purchase Order’s page would not show that the Item had been unlinked.
Correction: Fixed.
#61247
Complaint: Salespeople mentioned that when searching for a Machine, searching by using words in the Machine's description would return inconsistent results.
Correction: Fixed. Now when you search for a Machine, Flyntlok will once again partially match your search term against words in the Machine's description.
#61495
Complaint: Service Managers reported they were unable to link a Sales Order back to a Work Order after it was unlinked.
Correction: Fixed.
#61083
Complaint: Part Receivers reported they were receiving an unintelligible error if they received an item at zero quantity.
Correction: Fixed. The error now explains that you cannot receive zero quantity of an item.
Last Release Notes
January 15th, 2025 Release Notes
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